iTunes gets OS X Yosemite Notification Widget

By Jeff Gamet

Jan 30th, 2015 9:05 AM EST

Apple rolled out iTunes 12.1 on Thursday with a new feature just for OS X Yosemite users: a Notification Center widget. The widget lets iTunes users play and pause songs from their personal music library or from iTunes Radio, skip ahead, and purchase streaming songs from the iTunes Store.

iTunes 12.1 gets a Notification Center widget

According to Apple's release notes, the 12.1 update also improves sync performance with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

While the new Notification Center widget is pretty slick, we found it to be a bit of a disappointment, too. If offers controls only for the currently playing song, so you'll still have to make a trip into iTunes if you want to pick a different play list or iTunes Radio station.

iTunes is included with OS X, and the update is free through Apple's Mac App Store.